iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Prediction: in not long, the US government will restrict AI use by any entity receiving a government contract to methods watermarking output. AI firms will promote this as a way for consumers to detect AI. But watermarks will also encode user ID, etc, made available to law enforcement.

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I had the same initial thought when I saw everyone who got off a decoy train for Obama's whistle stop tour to the inauguration in 2009, but I was wrong and it made sense then and now.

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News for people keeping track of whether Steven Quay will be the next NIAID director — everything after “business plan” in his company’s latest quarterly report is newly added. Seems like something they should’ve disclosed long ago?

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Zach Hensel @zachhensel.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

At least the vertical video department is growing 😬

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💯 although no need to imagine; we had it for a few years

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A quick update on this. The @vanityfair.com story from @katherineeban.bsky.social also reported "almost a third" of 2815 samples from Yunnan province reported in Ping Yu's thesis "testing positive for SARS-like coronaviruses." There were 92 positive samples. 92/2815 is 3.3%, not 33%.

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Correction: Jason Bannan is a retired FBI scientist, not a retired FBI agent. My apologies for the error.

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Husband Breached His Fiduciary Duty When He Lent $1,000,000 After Separation | Orange County Divorce Lawyers | Minyard Morris

A judge to your next NIAID Director: "Taking 20 percent of one’s capital and tying it up in an illiquid investment and making a loan… to a company whose financial situation was uncertain are not the hallmarks of a prudent fiduciary." www.minyardmorris.com/media-center...

minyardmorris.com

Husband lent $1,000,000 of community funds after separation to a speculative company. The divorce court assigned the risky investment to husband in the divorce judgment.

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Flo Débarre @flodebarre.eurosky.social · 05/08/2026

I wrote @katherineeban.bsky.social and @vanityfair.com about major errors at the core of this story. The story alleged that Zhengli Shi: - Hid samples important to understanding COVID-19 origins long before 2020. - Continued to hide them after the "pandemic erupted." Both allegations were false.

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Reposted by Zach Hensel

Steven Quay, in line to be NIAID director, is not just any lab leaker. He is of the type of leakers who still talk about "HIV inserts". He has deleted his tweets from 2021-2025, so here are some screenshots to give you an idea of who Quay is: ▫️1/🧵 #covidorigin #quayniaid

Tweet screenshot

@quay_dr
My new analysis indicates these same inserts are responsible for long
COVID.
Designed into the virus.
zenodo.org/records/145597...

Quote-tweeting:
Dr David Cartland BMedSci MBChB MRCGP (201 v) @CartlandDavic • 11h
"It was the job of a professional [and] it's NOT Natural"
Nobel Prize winner for HIV research, Luc Montagnier (RIP), said someone
"inserted small sequences of HIV" into the original covid Pandemic virus. He died after he presented the findings aired here on a French
[photo of Montagnier on CNews]

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Reposted by Zach Hensel

Martin Steinegger 🇺🇦 @martinsteinegger.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Riboseek is a fast RNA/DNA search. More sensitive than nhmmer at 250x speed. Structure-aware realignment produces MSAs approaching rMSA quality. Plus 1.7M precomputed RNA MSAs, and an API to search your own 📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 💾 github.com/steineggerla... 🌐 search.foldseek.com/riboseek

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Reposted by Zach Hensel

Alex Crits-Christoph @acritschristoph.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

So, something that the media will sanewash as this story develops is Quay isn't just a lab origin proponent. He has for 5 years sold an endless stream of very specifically wrong and silly ideas on the topic. He's not right, but even if he was, that wouldn't excuse his fabrications along the way!

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Zach Hensel @zachhensel.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

‘“All I will say is this man does not deserve any of this SHIT that he and his family are going through,’ Carla Heeke Dean, a former patient of Fauci’s whose medical information was included in the documents, said in an email.”

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There was an actual scandal last week around the Fauci hearings. But you probably won't hear about it from the science/politics commentariat.

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Here's what Quay was doing with his time rather than paying so little attention to his company that he hired a rapist on the run as Chief Medical Officer. Lots of silly stuff in his testimony, but the sillier one was saying ORF8 in SARS-CoV-2 was a diabolical gene inserted by mad scientists.

SARS2 contains a protein called ORF8, so named because it is the eighth protein in the SARS2 genome.
It is one of the only proteins that is not part of the finished virus or is involved in taking over the cellular
machinery that makes new viruses. ORF8 is diabolical. It is made early after an infection before other
viral proteins begin to be synthesized. At this point the cell is largely unaware it is infected and hasn’t
mounted any defenses. ORF8 enters the blood stream and interacts with the immune system, doing two
things.

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Gold Standard Science™ Saying that Quay is "coming from the drug industry" is like saying someone is "coming from an avalanche." The dude is currently CEO of the third publicly traded company in a row that he's run into the ground.

Quay, a physician and pathologist, would be the first NIAID director coming from the drug industry, instead of from academia or the leagues of scientists at its parent agency, the National Institutes of Health. Quay also does not have formal training in infectious diseases.

When the National Institutes of Health made an open call for applicants last year, Quay applied. NIH staff reviewed applications and did not advance him to the interview stage, according to one of the people familiar with the process. But Kennedy selected Quay over those finalists who were interviewed, and the NIH signed off on his hiring last week.

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